Honduran migrant Fernando Sanchez paid a trafficker $7,000 to smuggle him to the United States with his three-year-old daughter, but they spent just days on US soil before being deported.
For many undocumented migrants, particularly adult men, what they hoped would be an open door thanks to US President Joe Biden has turned out to be a revolving door back to Mexico.
Sanchez was deported to the Mexican border city Ciudad Juarez along with dozens of other migrants under a rule known as Title 42 that was introduced a year ago to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Now in debt to friends who loaned him money to pay the trafficker, the 38-year-old still clings to hope that Biden, who he calls “our president,” will help him.
“I know that Joe Biden, our president, can open the door for us and say ‘come in everyone who is suffering,'” he said.
Sanchez, now staying with his daughter at a shelter in Ciudad Juarez, asked AFP to change his name to avoid potential problems with the US authorities in the future.
While some migrants, notably unaccompanied minors and women with small children, are now being allowed to stay, men who are caught by US border patrols are usually sent back quickly.
In February, the US Customs and Border Protection agency detained about 100,000 people at the southern border — a 28 percent increase over January.
Most came from Central American nations Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, which are wracked by poverty and gang-related violence.
